


we build empires on your kitchen table

by misura



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Diggle is a great guy with great taste, Felicity and Diggle team up and get the guy, Felicity likes video games and sexy guys, Multi, Oliver looks good with and without a towel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 21:54:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's important to you that I walk around without a towel?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	we build empires on your kitchen table

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tassosss (Tassos)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tassos/gifts).



> you suggested letting Felicity and Diggle help Oliver running his club, which sounded like a very fun idea to me.
> 
> possibly, this fic takes the whole thing in a slightly different direction than the one you pictured but so it goes, and I hope you'll enjoy the result?
> 
> written as a treat, and based on/set during the first season

The thing people sometimes forgot about Oliver was that he could, on occasion, be observant.

Not observant in the 'gosh, Felicity, what a gorgeous dress you're wearing today' sense or even in the 'say, Dig, is that a new tie? it goes perfectly with your eyes' sense, but in the sense that, well.

Here she was, minding her own business, running a search through the FBI database on one screen, a quick Google quest for articles on a recent series of accidents (or rather 'accidents') happening to people involved in a protest against a certain multi-million building project on another screen, and taking a well-deserved, five-minute-tops break to take care of some personal stuff on screen number three, and up popped Oliver to say:

"Felicity, are you playing _games_?"

"Game," she said. "Singular, not plural."

Oliver looked deeply disapproving, with a hint of 'I had expected better from you' that might have almost made her feel just a teensy bit guilty. Diggle looked faintly amused.

"It's widely accepted that people who work with computers all day spend a portion of their workday using those computers for their personal entertainment."

"This isn't work," Oliver said. "This is ... important."

Diggle looked clearly amused. Felicity tried to be happy at least one of them was having a good time.

"And your point would be ... ?"

"Don't play games," Oliver said, and then, just to show he was serious about this: "Please."

"Like, ever? Because - "

"Like, when you're in here, with me, doing something important," Oliver said, which put so many loopholes in the whole thing she wasn't sure why he even bothered. (Well, it was probably a male ego thing. He did have one of those, after all, and then some, even if he didn't seem to think his body was even a tenth as smoking hot as it actually was, scars and all.)

"Okay, fine. I solemnly promise not to game when you're here and I'm doing something important."

Diggle grinned at her. He had a very sexy grin. Smart, too. Definitely a catch.

"Thank you," Oliver said, half-sincere and half-exasperated, like he couldn't see what all the fuss had been about, but was glad to put it behind him now. (That made two of them, then. And he'd started it, anyway.)

 

"So what you're playing?" Diggle asked, once Oliver was gone.

The FBI database was still putting up a brave but ultimately doomed fight - Google had opted for its usual tactic of pretending to play nice and then chucking one-million-plus hits at her.

"Something educational." She told Google 'nice try, buddy, now how about we do this again?'.

"Okay," Diggle said. "I'm picturing something with farms now."

Farms? "You mean porn." Everybody always thought about porn. Like the Internet hadn't been originally meant to provide free access to all information for everybody. Or, well, for everybody who happened to be a genius hacker.

"Well." Diggle looked adorably uncomfortable. "I didn't really feel up to talking to you about porn. So I figured I'd go with 'farms', see where that got me."

"I'd guess our tastes would be rather different. I mean, I'm a girl, you're not, and very few guys actually look like Oliver. Trust me, I've checked." A dirty job, but someone'd clearly needed to do it, for all that the real thing seemed perfectly okay with working out half-naked in front of them. "I'm kidding."

"No, you're not." Diggle smiled. "And that's good to know. I think one of him is plenty."

"Happy to share if you are."

"Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, don't you think?"

Which was a comment that could have gone to all sorts of interesting places, she thought, except that then Oliver came bouncing down the stairs (well, not really 'bouncing', as such. More like 'striding at sufficient speed to skip a few steps while still looking gloomy and broody'.)

 

"It's a simulation game."

Diggle looked mildly intrigued. "So I guess I wasn't that far off, after all."

"Well, it's not for a farm." She liked cities. There were lots of people in cities - and you usually got a solid reception wherever you were, as long as you didn't stick yourself in a reinforced basement or something. Farms just had cows and chickens and sheep and people worryining about the weather. "It's for a - "

"Night club," Diggle said. A smart guy, and knowing it - even if he apparently was still feeling a bit insecure, given that he felt the need to show it off in front of her. "Sorry."

Also, possibly a mind reader. "It's okay. I think you are very attractive, too."

"Thank you."

"Thank _you_." Oliver Queen, take note. (Except that he was definitely _not_ a mind reader, so he probably wouldn't ever figure it out without someone explicitly telling him.)

"You're helping Oliver run his night club," Diggle said, which was a bit of a - well, either an overstatement of Oliver's involvement, or an understatement of hers. "No. _You_ are running this night club. As a game. And Oliver doesn't know."

"He knows the club's being run." When he bothered to think of it at all. "Vaguely." Probably.

Diggle looked at her warmly - her and him against the madness that was life in the orbit of Oliver Queen, billionaire, vigilante and (nominal) night club owner. "I'll help."

"Um."

"Let me rephrase that. Is there anything I can do to help?"

Felicity tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "As a matter of fact, it does have a multi-player mode. So yeah, I can hook you up. You ever run a night club before?"

"Have you?"

"I played lots of Sim City and Rollercoaster Tycoon as a kid."

"Can't say I did the same," Diggle said. "Not even a few shoot 'em ups. Thought they were dumb."

"You have good taste." Felicity nodded. "I've noticed that about you. Don't worry, I wrote a tutorial."

 

Technically, the game didn't have _a_ multi-player mode.

It had two.

"Competitive mode?" Diggle asked, one eyebrow arched inquisitively.

" 'Mess with the best, die like the rest,' " Felicity said, and then, because he probably didn't know: "It's a quote. From a movie about hackers. And it's kind of ironic, because, like, five seconds after he says it, he gets fried. By a girl. I liked that."

"You think you're the best?"

"No," Felicity said, because modesty was supposed to be an attractive quality in a woman. "I _know_ that I am the best." Self-knowledge and self-esteem weren't probably, but whatever. Oliver wouldn't notice her that way if she put on the sluttiest of all slutty dresses - and Diggle would notice and appreciate her no matter _what_ she wore, being a gentleman of excellent taste.

Diggle smiled. "So what's the bet?"

Choices, choices. Then again, why not keep it modest, this first time around? "Loser steals Oliver's towel when he's taking a shower."

"Petty," Diggle commented.

"Instant eye candy," Felicity corrected. "And it's not like we're forcing him to walk around _naked_. Just ... half-naked. And wet. And he walks around half-naked plenty of times already."

"You're on," Diggle said.

 

The towel thing didn't work out. Like, spectacularly didn't work out.

"You're ... " Felicity started, searching for a good way to say: _'you're supposed to be half-naked and wet and searching for your towel right now'_ without phrasing it quite so bluntly.

"Spare towel," Oliver said, which was an interesting statement.

"You carry a spare towel in your bag?" Diggle asked. "What, were you with the boy scouts?" Felicity's money would have been on Diggle having been one. Sounded like she might have saved herself a few dollars there.

Oliver sat down in a swivelly chair and swivelled it. Like a boss. "You took my towel."

"You're really hot," Felicity said. "I mean, seriously, smoking hot."

Oliver looked mildly disconcerted. Diggle leaned against a desk and crossed his arms.

"I don't," Oliver said, before he seemed to change his mind about what he'd been going to say. "I thought maybe there was something we needed to talk about."

"Well, we can definitely talk about how hot you are. I mean, if that's what you want. Or we could discuss your personality, which is kind of moody and gloomy and broody and not so hot, but we know you've got a good heart - well, we hope so, anyway, so we love you anyway."

Oliver got that expression on his face that he always got when he had decided to do something potentially disastrously stupid. "Thanks. I think. So glad we had this talk. Now, about this guy I asked you to gather information on - "

"Oliver," Diggle said, because Diggle was fierce and fearless, when the situation required it.

" _What?_ " Oliver turned and there was definitely a hint of the guy who merrily put arrows in people in his voice.

Diggle faced him full on. "If it makes you uncomfortable, just say so."

"It doesn't make me uncomfortable," Oliver said. "It's just not - "

"Important. To you."

"Yeah," Oliver said. "Exactly." He looked almost relieved - his mistake, Felicity could have told him.

"It's important to us," Diggle said.

"It's important to you that I walk around without a towel?"

Diggle didn't crack. Good man. "It's important to us that you realize that we view you as someone who has become a part of our lives. Someone who is dear to us, even if he is sometimes prickly and difficult and unreasonable."

"And oblivious," Felicity put in. "And totally the kind of boyfriend my mother always warned me not to get involved with. Not that you are. My boyfriend, I mean."

Diggle half-smiled. "I don't think you're exactly the kind of date my mother'd be happy to see me bring home for dinner, either."

"Are we done here?" Oliver asked.

 

"So why make it a game?" Diggle asked, which was a much easier question to answer than: _'so what went wrong back there, exactly, and how can we be sure it goes better next time?_. (Well, those were actually two questions. Both equally tricky, though, if also probably vital.)

Felicity ticked off a ticky list of supplies. "It's more comfortable. I mean, it's a lot of money I'm spending here, you know. Like, seriously a lot."

"Oliver's money," Diggle said.

Felicity shrugged. "His night club, his money."

"Fair enough, I guess." Diggle sighed. "It just feels - I don't know."

"Morally wrong?"

"Unfair," Diggle said. "To you. You're doing all this work for him, and he's not even aware of it."

"I don't mind," Felicity said. "Gives me something to feel smug about when he gets all righteous."

 

They didn't talk about towels again, which was probably for the best, and Oliver didn't stop walking around half-naked, which was definitely for the best, even if it also seemed to imply that maybe he'd actually been serious when he said that being found sexy, being _wanted_ (and not just for his body, although, so sue her, that was a part of it, yes) was not something he cared about. At all.

"I could just sit here naked and you wouldn't even notice, would you?" Felicity asked.

Diggle looked like he was picturing her naked now, and felt vaguely guilty about it, as if the naked thing had been all his own idea. Oliver looked ... well, might as well call it 'blank'. He might be thinking, only it was anyone's guess what about.

"I think I'd probably notice that," he said, finally.

"In a positive, 'hey, naked woman over there' kind of way?"

Oliver's mouth did that thing he did when he felt someone was giving him too little credit. "You're a very attractive woman, Felicity."

"She is," Diggle said, before she could embarrass herself with a fist-pump of victory or, possibly worse, ask him to elaborate.

"And I very much appreciate all of your help," Oliver went on. "Including running the club. Both of you."

"Felicity does most of the work," Diggle said. Giving credit were credit was due, even if she felt they might be drifting away from the original topic of this conversation a bit.

"Dig helps," she said quickly. "A lot. And he's a very attractive and smart guy."

"I noticed." Oliver sounded like he might be smiling.

"So ... ?"

"So I need some time to think about this," Oliver said, which halfway sounded like he was copping out, except that Oliver generally copped out a bit more clearly and determinedly and with clear warning signs saying 'Danger! Broody archer in a bad mood!'.

 

"How much time do you think 'some time' is?"

Diggle considered. "Less than five years?"

Peachy. "That long, huh?"

Diggle shrugged. "Could be a month."

 

As it turned out, it was more like two. All things considered, it was probably worth the wait, though, to just come into 'not work, just important' with Diggle right behind her, finding Oliver already there, poised to Make a Statement.

"Okay, ground rules," Oliver said, which might have sounded vaguely ominous had he been wearing anything other than, well, nothing. (He didn't look cold. He definitely, most assuredly didn't look cold. Which was entirely reasonable, given how warm it felt in here right now.)

"Can I grab my phone real quick?" A picture not just saying more than a thousand words, but also lasting a good deal longer than a fond memory.

Oliver's smile came and went. "No."

She'd have to try and get the image off one of the security cameras later. And encrypt it with the mother of all encryptions. "Sorry."

"No sex on the job," Oliver said, which sounded suspiciously much like a solid, written-in-stone promise that there would, in fact, be sex _off_ the job. (So sometime next year. Maybe.) "No inappropriate comments on the job."

Felicity raised her hand.

"Slips of the tongue excepted," Oliver amended. "Ogle to your heart's content, just keep it professional."

 _Fantasize about sex with your boss as much as you want, but keep it respectful._ Uh-huh. Not that Oliver was her boss or anything - well, not here, anyway. Probably, the idea was more along the lines of acting professional and thinking whatever you wanted, which was what people generally did anyway.

"We're a good team," Oliver said. "I don't want to risk that. So we'll be taking it slow. We'll go on dates. We'll meet each other's friends and family."

"No sex before marriage?" Diggle looked far more amused than anyone who probably wasn't going to get laid for another two years had any right to look. "Is that the general idea here?"

"Yes," Oliver said.

"Okay," Diggle said. "Felicity?"

"Absolutely." _Not._

Oliver beamed at them both. "Great."


End file.
